Where are the speakers on the Yoga 6? It's sad to see the 7i's speakers are on the keyboard so it's rear firing when in tent and tablet mode, thus failing as a 2-in-1.
I was thinking the same thing. And by extension, why are there so few LPDDR4x Renoir designs overall? I have understood that Renoir is mostly geared towards power savings with LPDDR, keeping it at half clock speed until the GPU is heavily loaded, but is that actually a problem? Is there any other reason why OEMs are saddling otherwise premium Renoir designs with sub-par RAM?
Cost? Amd hasn't been historically popular with consumers. Not only is the ram cheaper the screen is too. Even the model name is 1 less than the Intel version.
This circular reasoning never fails to annoy me. By that rationale AMD will never be popular with consumers, because they'll never be in any decent devices, because they were never popular with consumers, because...
It doesn't take a genius to see that the cycle can be broken with a good product at the right price - most consumers aren't so brand-loyal to Intel that they'd reject a comparable (or superior) product for a lower price.
So - I could understand a few of the OEMs going with that "steady as she goes" rationale, but all of them? I don't buy that at all.
Maybe for the same reason that no OEM offers Renoir laptops with a GPU above a standard RTX 2060 (i.e. not even the super) or higher end screen options ?
Yeah, the quality/construction for the models should be the same, along with the options. There's no reason why they can't be, with just very slight changes due to CPU socket/size and supporting chipset unique to each. Cooling, display quality, storage, and the other options should be basically the same. Check out Hardware Unboxed's video on the XMG Core 15 for an example of how it's done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM86auSGb2M
Totally agree and saw the video but having identically specced machines is not in Intel‘s interest and I am quite sure they will make it worthwhile to the OEM to not offer too highly specced AMD machines.
Remember Intel‘s marketing slides pointing out that you could only get high end Geforce GPU in Intel based laptops? How did they know this before all Renoir based laptops were presented ?
Yeah, Intel has been busted before for their illegal activities, and I wouldn't put it past them to continue to try to influence the OEMs in whatever way possible.
However, Renoir-based laptops haven't had a lot of time in ODM/OEM design centers to really create good designs with the appropriate cooling and parts. I think we've seen a number of "fast" efforts so far. Part of the issue for the OEMs is that AMD in a laptop used to be a cheaper, under-performing part; thus, they were sold in primarily budget laptops. Renoir is almost a complete 180 on that part, and now they are faced with designing an appropriate laptop with a price that is just above budget-pricing so as to start bumping the purchase price higher. It will take some time for the public to see Ryzen as the "performance" laptop, not just the budget laptop. With the desktop version going so well, that could happen pretty quickly, though, perhaps even within two mobile CPU generations.
I do think Dell, HP, and Acer could be doing more with Renoir models, especially Dell. Dell has a long history with Intel, but I imagine even Dell is rethinking their product portfolio, despite any under-the-table dealings that might be going on.
Intel also has had more money for "partner" programs where Intel basically designs half the motherboard and approves the part list. This has happened since before Athena to be clear.
By contrast, my Thinkpad E485 uses Synaptics audio which still is blocking me from receiving the 2004 update.
Worth noting that the pricing advantage AMD has on core count with desktop Ryzen might not be as advantageous on mobile. Chiplet design reduces die size and thus increases yield -- that's not available on laptops, so it's possible that laptop makers are struggling to deliver the typical AMD price advantage that customers expect, and/or designed for a lower cost than AMD ended up delivering.
Renoir is the same size as quad-core Tiger Lake, and quite a bit smaller than the prior Zen APUs.
8 cores and a large GPU makes binning convenient. There's something like 26 SKUs of the one die. The big mark up would be on the 4900HS and 4800HS.
Chiplets help the platforms with lots of IO, which wouldn't scale down as well to be cost effective at 7nm. The same IO chips are also used for the motherboards, so there's an economy of scale advantage.
AMD said a while back it's a minor difference for the high desktop sellers like the 3600, but double for 16 cores, and it keeps going up from there.
Zen 3 could very well have more variations of SoCs, rather than IO dies. They just need the sales volume to justify another dedicated die.
I think its the case of U vs H. Amd anticipated that most OEMS would go half hearted with their chips and put cheap parts. The H versions of chips are always paired with best hardware, while U is just the OEM doing what it wants
I know there's a certain race to the bottom element with pricing, but i'm kind of surprised there is still a market for sub-32g memory devices. For practically any application you wouldn't do on your phone or TV, 32g is a must.
Not necessary at all. You can do fine with 8 GB or even 4 GB depending on the OS and what you're doing.
What I would like to see is more user-upgradeable memory, so you can buy a 4 GB laptop and just replace it with 32 GB or 64 GB yourself. But soldered memory is nearly ubiquitous now.
Yes. I am waiting for MSI Modern 14 B4M which can go up to 64GB. Most likely it will have a substandard keyboard, unfortunately, if not as abysmal as a MacBook.
I'd say: 8 GB should be the minimum for basic users. 16 GB for mid-range gamers/moderate users. 32+ GB for power users (VM's, heavier photo/video editing, large compilation projects.)
Once again we see the AMD machine gimped with substandard specs for me AMD should demand equality of standards or nothing the chips are good enough anyway for demand to be there, then again when you have currys pcworld advertising constantly about its subpar Intel laptops but nothing for AMDs hmm dirty tricks still in use
Intel will be explicitly giving kickbacks to resellers like Currys / PCWorld for shifting certain quantities of devices with their chips in. They usually tend to "sponsor" placement of products in the store, too.
As far as I'm aware none of that stuff is illegal, it's just shitty, because it's anti-competitive and the cost of all these shenanigans is passed to the consumer - both directly through the products they buy that have the marketing costs baked in, and indirectly through the stifling of competition.
Looks like Intel's 4-core Tiger Lake CPU has terrible idle power management compared to Renoir. No wonder they need the Atom cores in their CPUs. It doesn't look like the *Cove micro-architecture is particularly efficient, to say the least.
Beware new folks who are planning to buy this product. I wish I could sue Lenovo CEO and their sales team for this Yoga product. I bought Yoga 730 (15 inch) March 2019 when I spent $1300 out of my limited student budget. Here is the dark side of this product: It had high fan noise (pls google to see tons on complaint) from very first day and still has the same problem. Most importantly it shows blur/unclear windows every times i starts the machine...I am having this blur windows problem since Feb 2020. Just in a year!!!! Pls also see in google the lawsuit against Lenovo Yoga related to this blur issue. I contacted their customer care several times but they refused to give any services. I cant think of company with good reputation but sells that kind of product and ripped off customers. As i mentioned, Had I ability I would sue thus company's CEO and sales team related to Yoga brand...such a worst laptop i bought ever. And never ever Lenovo....probably, I will do more against this brand if the chance comes. So pls google before buying yoga....I wish I could the this company is going to the hell or totally out of market ( like Nokia)
Also, waiting a month longer for the new Intel models with Thunderbolt 4 and Xe integrated graphics seems like a no-brainer if you don't have to upgrade right away. Not that they'll necessarily be better than the Ryzen systems, but you'll have the opportunity to compare head to head.
I'm curious what kind of port selection the 6 will come with.
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JustMe21 - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Where are the speakers on the Yoga 6? It's sad to see the 7i's speakers are on the keyboard so it's rear firing when in tent and tablet mode, thus failing as a 2-in-1.Azix - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
fabric lid doesn't look "sharp". interesting maybe. unique maybe. don't think I like the idea though.Lekz - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Yeah, well, that's just, like, your opinion, man.sonny73n - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Lekz! go troll somewhere else.ingwe - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
It is interesting to me. But I don't think I would purchase it (I'm a bit concerned about wear). So maybe I don't like it eitherdamianrobertjones - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
I like capitals as they're 'sharp'. Interesting maybe. Unique. I do like the idea of them.ZoZo - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Which one's your favourite? London? Tokyo? Monrovia?Teckk - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
No LPDDR4 support on Renoir?Valantar - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
I was thinking the same thing. And by extension, why are there so few LPDDR4x Renoir designs overall? I have understood that Renoir is mostly geared towards power savings with LPDDR, keeping it at half clock speed until the GPU is heavily loaded, but is that actually a problem? Is there any other reason why OEMs are saddling otherwise premium Renoir designs with sub-par RAM?Ej24 - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Cost? Amd hasn't been historically popular with consumers. Not only is the ram cheaper the screen is too. Even the model name is 1 less than the Intel version.Spunjji - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
This circular reasoning never fails to annoy me. By that rationale AMD will never be popular with consumers, because they'll never be in any decent devices, because they were never popular with consumers, because...It doesn't take a genius to see that the cycle can be broken with a good product at the right price - most consumers aren't so brand-loyal to Intel that they'd reject a comparable (or superior) product for a lower price.
So - I could understand a few of the OEMs going with that "steady as she goes" rationale, but all of them? I don't buy that at all.
Irata - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Maybe for the same reason that no OEM offers Renoir laptops with a GPU above a standard RTX 2060 (i.e. not even the super) or higher end screen options ?romrunning - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Yeah, the quality/construction for the models should be the same, along with the options. There's no reason why they can't be, with just very slight changes due to CPU socket/size and supporting chipset unique to each. Cooling, display quality, storage, and the other options should be basically the same. Check out Hardware Unboxed's video on the XMG Core 15 for an example of how it's done: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zM86auSGb2MIrata - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Totally agree and saw the video but having identically specced machines is not in Intel‘s interest and I am quite sure they will make it worthwhile to the OEM to not offer too highly specced AMD machines.Remember Intel‘s marketing slides pointing out that you could only get high end Geforce GPU in Intel based laptops? How did they know this before all Renoir based laptops were presented ?
romrunning - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Yeah, Intel has been busted before for their illegal activities, and I wouldn't put it past them to continue to try to influence the OEMs in whatever way possible.However, Renoir-based laptops haven't had a lot of time in ODM/OEM design centers to really create good designs with the appropriate cooling and parts. I think we've seen a number of "fast" efforts so far. Part of the issue for the OEMs is that AMD in a laptop used to be a cheaper, under-performing part; thus, they were sold in primarily budget laptops. Renoir is almost a complete 180 on that part, and now they are faced with designing an appropriate laptop with a price that is just above budget-pricing so as to start bumping the purchase price higher. It will take some time for the public to see Ryzen as the "performance" laptop, not just the budget laptop. With the desktop version going so well, that could happen pretty quickly, though, perhaps even within two mobile CPU generations.
I do think Dell, HP, and Acer could be doing more with Renoir models, especially Dell. Dell has a long history with Intel, but I imagine even Dell is rethinking their product portfolio, despite any under-the-table dealings that might be going on.
lmcd - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Intel also has had more money for "partner" programs where Intel basically designs half the motherboard and approves the part list. This has happened since before Athena to be clear.By contrast, my Thinkpad E485 uses Synaptics audio which still is blocking me from receiving the 2004 update.
Worth noting that the pricing advantage AMD has on core count with desktop Ryzen might not be as advantageous on mobile. Chiplet design reduces die size and thus increases yield -- that's not available on laptops, so it's possible that laptop makers are struggling to deliver the typical AMD price advantage that customers expect, and/or designed for a lower cost than AMD ended up delivering.
brantron - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Renoir is the same size as quad-core Tiger Lake, and quite a bit smaller than the prior Zen APUs.8 cores and a large GPU makes binning convenient. There's something like 26 SKUs of the one die. The big mark up would be on the 4900HS and 4800HS.
Chiplets help the platforms with lots of IO, which wouldn't scale down as well to be cost effective at 7nm. The same IO chips are also used for the motherboards, so there's an economy of scale advantage.
AMD said a while back it's a minor difference for the high desktop sellers like the 3600, but double for 16 cores, and it keeps going up from there.
Zen 3 could very well have more variations of SoCs, rather than IO dies. They just need the sales volume to justify another dedicated die.
ZolaIII - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Well you have option for 1000 (720) nits displays with Envy x360 13" but for now US only regarding availability.leo_sk - Friday, August 21, 2020 - link
I think its the case of U vs H. Amd anticipated that most OEMS would go half hearted with their chips and put cheap parts. The H versions of chips are always paired with best hardware, while U is just the OEM doing what it wantsikjadoon - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
The Slim 7 Pro is Renoir-H w/ LPDDR4X (and 16:10, to boot).https://www.notebookcheck.net/Lenovo-Yoga-Slim-7-P...
But no US pricing, so perhaps why Anandtech hasn't written about it yet.
Chaitanya - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Missing SD slots otherwise look quite decent.surt - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
I know there's a certain race to the bottom element with pricing, but i'm kind of surprised there is still a market for sub-32g memory devices. For practically any application you wouldn't do on your phone or TV, 32g is a must.Zertzable - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
32GB is totally unnecessary in most typical workloads.nandnandnand - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Not necessary at all. You can do fine with 8 GB or even 4 GB depending on the OS and what you're doing.What I would like to see is more user-upgradeable memory, so you can buy a 4 GB laptop and just replace it with 32 GB or 64 GB yourself. But soldered memory is nearly ubiquitous now.
fazalmajid - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Yes. I am waiting for MSI Modern 14 B4M which can go up to 64GB. Most likely it will have a substandard keyboard, unfortunately, if not as abysmal as a MacBook.lmcd - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Please don't buy MSI "thin" laptops. They're woefully unable to cool the expensive parts contained within.Spunjji - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
What a bizarre comment. The vast majority of users don't even need 16GB.nonoverclock - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
I'd say: 8 GB should be the minimum for basic users. 16 GB for mid-range gamers/moderate users. 32+ GB for power users (VM's, heavier photo/video editing, large compilation projects.)alufan - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Once again we see the AMD machine gimped with substandard specs for me AMD should demand equality of standards or nothing the chips are good enough anyway for demand to be there, then again when you have currys pcworld advertising constantly about its subpar Intel laptops but nothing for AMDs hmm dirty tricks still in useSpunjji - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Intel will be explicitly giving kickbacks to resellers like Currys / PCWorld for shifting certain quantities of devices with their chips in. They usually tend to "sponsor" placement of products in the store, too.As far as I'm aware none of that stuff is illegal, it's just shitty, because it's anti-competitive and the cost of all these shenanigans is passed to the consumer - both directly through the products they buy that have the marketing costs baked in, and indirectly through the stifling of competition.
Mobile-Dom - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
oooh gimme that denim looking oneikjadoon - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
I known I'll hate it for wear/tear, but damn, does it look amaizng.ikjadoon - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
*amazing. I was so amazed, I could barely type!Krysto - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Looks like Intel's 4-core Tiger Lake CPU has terrible idle power management compared to Renoir. No wonder they need the Atom cores in their CPUs. It doesn't look like the *Cove micro-architecture is particularly efficient, to say the least.patel21 - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
I really hope Yoga 6 has upgradeable RAM, I could swap in 32GB RAM, and call it a day on my mobile workstation needs.RevAero - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
More and more and more announcements, and I still can't order a Thinkpad L14 (AMD)TechAd - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
Beware new folks who are planning to buy this product. I wish I could sue Lenovo CEO and their sales team for this Yoga product. I bought Yoga 730 (15 inch) March 2019 when I spent $1300 out of my limited student budget. Here is the dark side of this product: It had high fan noise (pls google to see tons on complaint) from very first day and still has the same problem. Most importantly it shows blur/unclear windows every times i starts the machine...I am having this blur windows problem since Feb 2020. Just in a year!!!! Pls also see in google the lawsuit against Lenovo Yoga related to this blur issue.I contacted their customer care several times but they refused to give any services. I cant think of company with good reputation but sells that kind of product and ripped off customers. As i mentioned, Had I ability I would sue thus company's CEO and sales team related to Yoga brand...such a worst laptop i bought ever. And never ever Lenovo....probably, I will do more against this brand if the chance comes. So pls google before buying yoga....I wish I could the this company is going to the hell or totally out of market ( like Nokia)
Smell This - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Is it me, or is this some of the ___ Worst. Propaganda. Ever. ??
Spunjji - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Yeah it's pretty desperate. Sad to see it.NomanchesBohr - Tuesday, August 18, 2020 - link
The key word is "STARTS AT". AMD remains cheaper and power at least very similar if not superior.10basetom - Wednesday, August 19, 2020 - link
Still no TB for AMD? WTHGregBulmash - Saturday, August 22, 2020 - link
Not a big fan of the fabric.Also, waiting a month longer for the new Intel models with Thunderbolt 4 and Xe integrated graphics seems like a no-brainer if you don't have to upgrade right away. Not that they'll necessarily be better than the Ryzen systems, but you'll have the opportunity to compare head to head.
I'm curious what kind of port selection the 6 will come with.